in which Phill Jupitus nearly steals my toy bee.
So, due to a combination of intense poverty, surprising lameness of friends ["what do you MEAN you 'don't want to go'???"] and having an incurable brain disease that made me [not to mention my supremely-worried and protective parents] wary of going more than an hour away from my local hospital I didn't pop my festival cherry until last year, at the creakingly old age of 22.

Did I get wasted and muddy at Glasto? Or spazzed out at Reading? How about writhing in metally hardcority at Download? No, in fact, I opted for the wonderfully genteel and astoundingly middle-class, theatre/comedy/poetry/literature/music festival Latitude. Nice mid-sized festival, still new enough for the arseholes not to have caught on, established enough to have a pretty damn good comedy lineup. Good place for me to cut my naive, crowd-fearing festival teeth.

So, it's Day 3 and there i was, in a happy post-smoke fuzz [i'm quite a lightweight] with some newly-met friends, happy and chilled out enough to get over my usual "shit-shit-you're-in-a-crowd-someone's-gonna-mug-you-someone's-gonna-mug-you" anxiety and blearily discussing 'current affairs' in the astoundingly confident, yet uninformed way that only drugged people can manage. I'm assertively stating my point about fuck-knows-what when, surrounded by a light cluster of hangers-on, a pork-pie-hatted, beponcho'ed and overwhelmingly fucked up rolypoly vision strolls slowly towards me.

I actually manage to finish my sentence before my eyes catch up to my mouth and i interrupt my friend's rebuttal with a casual "Phill Jupitus just walked past." I know that i want to jump up and ask him for an autograph, but somehow i'm not quite sure if i can be bothered. My bag IS all the way down on the floor, after all... We all double-take and confer to make sure. Yes. it absolutely is him. Definitely. and, by all that is stripey and wasted - is he off his TITS...

Digging around for my mascot and camera [i'm an ugly fatto, so take a small stuffed toy to act as a placeholder in photo-taking situations] I wander over to him, trying to work out a way to say "oh my god it's YOU! HI! Sign here and smile while i take a picture!!!" without seeming like a squealing fangirl.

Turns out that I didn't have to. He's already been caught by another fan, and is enthusiastically scrawling his name on a scrap of paper when he stops mid-signature, jawdrops and GRABS for my mascot. His name is BobTheBee.

"WOW!" he chortles, hugging him in delight. "WHO IS THIS???" he shakes the toy at me emphatically, then gently strokes it as if to apologise for the rough treatment.

"Uh, uh, it's my toy. His name's Bob. He's a bee" I wave my camera vaguely. "Can I take a picture?" "Wooooooooowwwwww....." he gazes lovingly into Bob's button eyes, enthralled as if hit by Cupid's 'Toybestial' arrow. I slyly snap a picture from the shoulder in case he - or his considerably more together friend - refuse to let me take a proper one.

"Bobbbbbb..." he strokes the bee again, grinning to himself. "Uh, Phill? Can I take a picture?" I wave the camera once more to illustrate. "OF COURSE!!!" he beams, posting gleefully with the toy. I turn on the flash snap a second picture and as soon as it's done he snuggles up to the bee again. I smile grin, cos it's kinda cute: massive stripey man, tiny stripey bee; then reach to take Bob back.

He holds on.

"Um. can i have my bee?" I pull a little harder, not really wanting to enter into a tug of war with him, not with all these people watching, anyway. There's not really any way i'm going to go without him, i love my bee!

His big happy face contorts into heartbroken expression and he clings on for a moment longer, nuzzling up to Bob's none-too-clean fur. Finally, with a tender squeeze, he relinquishes the toy but not before yanking me into a bearhug, pressing my rather confused face into the fuzzy scratchiness of his newly-bought festival poncho.

"BYEEEEE BOB!" he calls, waving sadly, and for a stabbing moment i feel somewhat bad for breaking up what was surely destined to be a beautiful lifelong relationship between large funnyman and small stuffed bee. I mean, who am i to stand in the way of true love? Sure, it's an unconventional relationship, but with his money and fame, it's likely that Phill could show BobTheBee a much better and more glamorous life than i ever could. Could i really bear to live my life knowing i had destroyed what could have been something truly momentous?

I hesitate for a moment, but selfishness wins out. He's MY fucking bee. He's gonna STAY mine! I get Bob to wave a fond farewell to his brief but passionate love, steeling myself for the inevitable sobbing outburst that must surely follow his departure but before i've even turned to leave, he lets out a huge squeal of delight and launches himself joyously at someone else.

Someone who has a big, cool, minty, refreshing Cornetto.

Ah, how quickly love is forgotten....

As for Bob, he still has his memories, and a fucking fantastic photo to look back on:

Mmm, can I have some of that?
Chart cat - it was my cornetto. Sadly, although I have pics I'm not going to post them because I look like a gurning freak. Although admittedly not as much as Phill does.
(berk, Fri 5 Jun 2009, 10:29,
closed)

I went to Latitude the year before last
And Phil Jupitus was once again wandering around in a drunken stupor, munching on an organic burger, drinking his organic cider, and giggling at the trees. Definitely seems to be a theme...
(The Empressit seems you CAN polish a turd!, Fri 5 Jun 2009, 10:25,
closed)

Phil Jupitus off his tits,
2 of my favourite things and a great picture of it! I clicks I do! :D
(..wil, Sat 6 Jun 2009, 10:27,
closed)